Think Prague in 1990. I have a feeling all the young dot.commers who got laid off two years ago are going to converge on Baghdad over the next six months. And I don't think that's a bad thing.Some people said I was being overly optimistic, but the emergence of Western entrepreneurship in Iraq is right on schedule. Check out the Baghdad Bulletin. It's published by a gaggle of 20-something Anglosphere expats, and it seems to be an attempt to impartially deliver local news. And there's this guy and these folks, and plenty of Iraqis - locals and returning expats - are starting or reviving businesses as well.
Next stop: the Palestininian territories. Far-fetched? No. The Iraqis and the Palestinian Arabs are the most middle-class Westernized entrepreneurial Arab groups in the Middle East. We are not "imposing Western culture" on them, we are helping them remove obstacles to doing what they are already very good at.
Let a thousand "MacDonals" bloom.
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